After My Alpha Rejected Our Dying Son

At 8:40 on the night of the Harvest Banquet, my mate stood up and gave our son's birthright to another woman's child.

I felt it before I saw it. The bond in my chest pulled tight and warm with his pride. Through the serving hatch of the Omega kitchen, I watched Alpha Harrison of the Ironveil Pack lift a steel blade with a gold hilt high over his head.

"Camden," he said. His voice filled the great hall. "My heir."

The hall roared. Fists pounded the long tables. Nicole, the woman Harrison chose long before the Moon Goddess chose me, sat at his right hand. She dabbed at dry eyes with a lace handkerchief. Her lilac perfume reached me even here, over the smell of burnt grease.

Camden, eleven years old, grabbed the blade like it already belonged to him.

Beside me, my son stood on an overturned crate to see. Calvin was ten. His coat sleeves stopped above his wrists. It was Camden's old coat. In his hand was a small wooden wolf he'd carved with a dull kitchen knife. It was for his father's desk. Harrison had walked past it twice.

Calvin didn't cry. He just held the wolf tighter.

I touched the hollow of my throat, where Harrison's mark sat, and pushed my words down the bond.

*Calvin is your blood. The Moon Goddess didn't give you a son so he could eat with servants. Give him a chair.*

His answer came fast.

*Be grateful for what you have.* The Alpha tone hit like a fist. *And never question my succession again.*

My knees hit the cold tiles. My lungs locked. For one second I couldn't see.

Then something deep inside me growled.

It wasn't my voice. It was lower. Older. It came from a place in me that had been silent my whole life.

I put my palm on the counter and stood up.

*No,* I sent back. Just that one word.

I felt his shock flare. Then I shut my side of the bond, like closing a door on a loud room.

"Mama?" Calvin jumped off the crate. His small hands pressed against my temples, the way I did for him when he had headaches. "It's okay. I don't need the table. I like it here. With you."

I pulled him against my chest. Through the walls came laughter and clapping. Someone started the Ironveil chant.

I held my son and listened. Something behind my eyes went still and cold. It wasn't grief. Grief was warm. This was different.

---

After the banquet, Camden got bolder.

The next morning, he tripped Calvin during chore rounds. Water went everywhere. At lunch, he flipped Calvin's bowl in front of the other Omega pups.

"Eat off the floor," Camden said loudly. "That's what wolves who can't shift do. Oh, wait. You don't have a wolf."

The Gamma stood ten feet away. He looked at the sky.

Calvin picked up the bowl and said, "Sorry." To Camden. *He* said sorry.

That night, I watched him carry the water pails. His hands shook. The dark circles under his eyes looked like bruises. When I bent to kiss his hair, I smelled his sweet-rain scent, the one I knew better than my own.

And under it, something bitter. Like metal. Like an old coin on the tongue.

I didn't know what it was. But I didn't sleep.

---

The next afternoon, I took him to Fiona, the pack Healer.

I told her everything. The bone aches. The fainting. The smell.

Fiona was quiet while she checked him. She pricked his finger and watched the blood darken in a glass vial. It turned a strange, cloudy color. Her mouth went flat.

"There are irregularities," she said carefully. "A full test needs the medicinal stores. The stores need Alpha authorization."

Her eyes were neutral. Too neutral.

I opened the bond. *Fiona needs the stores. Calvin is sick.*

Three words came back.

*The boy is weak.*

Then nothing. He was gone. Back to wherever Nicole was.

I looked at the vial in Fiona's hand.

"Give me the sample," I said.

She hesitated. Then she wrapped it in cloth and pressed it into my palm. "I never saw you take it," she whispered. "Keep it cold."

I slid it into my coat, right against my heart.

On the table, Calvin swung his feet. "I feel fine, Mama. Really." He smiled. "Can we go see the forest? The one where the pups do their first run? I want to know where I'll go someday."

"Yes, baby," I said. "We'll go."

I lifted him down. Through the window, I saw someone crossing the courtyard toward the Omega kitchen.

Nicole. Carrying a covered bowl. Calvin's supper.

She set it on the kitchen windowsill. Then she looked around once and wiped her fingertips clean on the lace handkerchief, one by one.